David Claerbout KING (after Alfred Wertheimer’s 1956 picture of a young man named Elvis Presley) , 2015-2016

The silent black and white projection is based on a photograph in a book that marks the transition from ordinary life to superstardom of Elvis Presley, then aged 21. The representation was entirely reconstructed with a number of real life persons, chosen for their resemblance to protagonists in Arthur Wertheimer's 1956 photo shoot. The central figure, Elvis Presley, was entirely reconstructed by mapping the likeness, drawn from hundreds of photographs of Presley, onto this figure. In the course of the video, it becomes the focus of close-ups, exploring the body of the young man in great detail.